Honestly, I had never heard of wholesaling before. I didn’t even know it was an option.

I thought about it, researched it a bit and decided that selling my products at both retail and wholesale would be an awesome way to create two streams of income. Ka-ching.

Having more than one stream of income not only increases your profit faster, it also increases your security.

Because when you have multiple streams of income, you don’t have to panic when business is slow or work from a big client dries up or you just need some extra cash.

And the best part about multiple streams of income? Every business owner can create them, whether you’re a blogger, product seller or service provider.

Here are 10 streams of income you can create:

1. Wholesale your product

If you only sell your product at retail, consider branching out into the world of wholesaling. Wholesaling is the sale of your goods, usually in large quantity at lower prices, to a retailer for resale purposes.

2. Retail your product

Do you currently only sell your product at wholesale? Then consider selling it at retail. You can open a shop on Shopify. This post walks you through how to get started in 15 minutes. Or, you can just as easily sell on sites like Amazon, eBay, and Etsy.

3. Create an affiliate program for your product

You can reach more customers and add a nice (passive!) income stream by recruiting affiliates to sell your product for you. The Case For Affiliate Marketing is a post I wrote to help show you how to do this.

Affiliate programs can be created for physical products (like blankets, blenders, or blazers) or digital products (like e-books, audio files or video tutorials) using sites like SendOwl or Share-A-Sale. You can also set up an affiliate system right on your WordPress site using a program like Affiliate Royale.

4. Write an e-book

Do you have knowledge, information or experience in a particular area that you could share with others? Then write an e-book and sell it. As an example, you can find ours right here.

5. Offer consulting

Share your knowledge, experience and information by consulting with people one-on-one. For example, if you’re a successful graphic designer, you can teach new designers how to set up their website, price their packages, buy the software, bill clients, create a portfolio, etc.

6. Teach a class

Like consulting, teaching a class allows you to share your knowledge, experience and information with others, but on a larger scale. You can teach classes locally or offer them online. If you’re not sure how to get started, check out WebinarAlly to help you get a webinar up and running on any WordPress site in 5 minutes or less. And, if you’ve been putting off launching because of the tech stuff, check out the videos at Launch & Profit.

7. Speak

Are you great on stage? Then launch a speaking career and another stream of income. You can speak at conferences, trade shows, and sales meetings and earn money doing it. Nervous about getting started? This article tells you everything you need to know and includes a free worksheet to help you keep it all together.

8. Become an affiliate

If you have a blog or website, you can join affiliate programs and set up affiliate links to different products and services on the web. When someone signs up through your affiliate link, you get a small cut of their advertising revenue. That can add up if you get a lot of affiliate sales, and you don’t have to do any of the work to produce physical and digital products. Our absolute FAVORITE affiliate marketing program is through Ultimate Bundles. Read why and jump on board, here.

9. Sell newsletter subscriptions

Again, if you have knowledge, experience or information to share, you can profit from it by writing a newsletter and charging a subscription fee for it. Once you build up your subscribers, you can make a nice chunk of change from it. For third party email providers, we recommend Mailerlite.

10. Sell advertising space

Do you have great traffic on your website or blog? Have tons of newsletter readers or podcast listeners? Then sell advertising. Learn more about selling advertising in Anna Viele’s awesome free ebook.

If selling ads seems overwhelming, you can grab a plugin to help you every step of the way. We use OIO Publisher because it’s free, easy, and it does it all.

So, what income streams are you going to add to your business? Tell us in the comments.

And I am also looking into options for selling a physical product with my partner, whether we do it solely online, open a retail outlet, wholesale it or offer a “shop-at-home” service where we go to them.

Its all about time available and making the most of it. Ideally a good source of income would be from the services that run while we are not working. Making money while sleeping!

I’m going to check out the rest of your blogs and see what other interesting articles you write! Thanks!

I don’t stock inventory. I don’t host parties. I’ve done it all, which includes selling candles, vacations, makeup and weight loss products but they’ve never allowed me to make the money that I do now. I don’t even have to recruit people. I DO help people make money their very first day. I also help people build a full-time income from home doing part-time work. Plus, it doesn’t even cost anything to get started! http://www.FreeBigCash.com

I love teaching multiple income streams to small business owners and start-ups. I was able to stay at home with my kids and run my business after I discovered how to create more income streams.. It change my life…I guess now you could say I’m a little obsessed with showing others how to do it! 🙂

Thanks so much for all the tips! I have a lot of websites that i have been looking to make money with, most of the time i am choosing a highly competetive niche like SEO or Hosting etc, thats what I do for a living. Using your tips though I will go down the route of CPA, I am already with CB and Amazon.

Some great ideas here, thank you! I am interested in setting up an affiliate program for the products we sell but after looking at ShareASale, I found the set up fee to be $550 which is significantly higher than my small business can commit to for trying out affiliate marketing. Do you know of other programs that have a lower fee structure?

I looked into Commission Junction pretty closely a few years ago and the fees were more than I could swallow. it seems to be set up for the very “big” guys. However, it is possible they have modified their structure sense then.

You have some really good info on your site. I have been struggling at this for years now but am not giving up on my dream. I currently sell on Etsy and Ebay…still really trying to find my niche. What I currently have, is good for gifts but seems not as much for repeat customers and so I did well at xmas…and now nothing. And before christmas nothing..especially on Etsy. So now I think Im moving onto a new product AGAIN. I should be blogging about this. I mean my experiences and the things I come up with…entertaining!
So I am gonna utilize your info as soon as I get my niche! 🙁

I am already wholesaling and retailing which is a great combination and has kept my business going. Because my products are handmade, I think something like an affiliate program would be difficult. But I have thought of teaching a class. Thanks for the ideas.

Hi Heather, great ideas! I couldn’t agree with you more about multiple income streams. I’ve dabbled in most of the online streams you mention, but do have an idea for a “real life” (?) product. Manufacturing, wholesaling, etc. makes my head spin though!

You’re such a wonderful mom entrepreneur. Thanks for the information. I’m gonna jump to number 3 and 9 as I was looking for message like this to push me. Again thank you and am gonna inbox you to find more information

Hi heathall,
I am landed here through viperchill.
I am happy to get you. My wife is thinking to leave her job, but don’t have any plan for what to next. So I am trying to involve her in online marketing.
Now this will be easier for me to teach her online marketing strategy using your blog content.
Thanks so much for your great content.

Hi Heather!
I’ve decided to jump on the Home-Party a.k.a. Trunk Show bandwagon. Providing people the opportunity to shop in the comfort of their homes, amongst their friends, while “earning” free product can’t be a bad thing. I’m in the process of planning marketing and hostess incentive programs now.

Heather, just came to this site from Viperchill. I’m a fairly successful “real-world” entrepreneur (All-In: How I Made $800,000 in a Lifetime and $15,000 Last Week) but I’ve yet to make my mark in the only or product world. I hesitate to go totally online, but I browsed around your site a bit to find that you made your start with physical products. Do you have a sitemap or something that can help me get started with physical products — I have some ideas and I know the general process, but what about the details like how to find manufacturing for a good price, how to mark up, how to manage inventory, etc? Thanks.

As far as managing inventory, I started out storing mine in my basement and keeping track of it manually. LOL. Then, when my wholesale business picked up, I hired a fulfillment center to handle inventory/shipping for me. It was awesome. 🙂